Friday, November 03, 2006

Friday 11/03 A.M. Quickie:Louisville Rules BCS?

Top Story: L'ville 44, WVA 34. Louisville sizzles, West Virginia fizzles, and the BCS enjoys a little more clarity. If they can win out, L'ville has put itself in a position to meet the OSU-Mich winner in the BCS title game. More on that a little later this morning.

More on today's biggest news:

Suddenly, how huge is next Thursday's primetime matchup between Louisville and unbeaten Rutgers (at Rutgers)? Come on: Who ISN'T rooting for Rutgers?

(And I'm not talking about rooting for Rutgers for the purposes of helping your one-loss SEC, Pac-10, Big 12, Big Ten or "Independent" team of your choice; I'm talking about rooting for Rutgers because HOW ALL-TIME AMAZING WOULD IT BE IF RUTGERS MADE THE BCS TITLE GAME? Exactly.)

And how much of an instant non-factor is WVA? I'm sort of embarrassed I put them at No. 2 this week.

Melo ejected for bitching: You kind of expected Rasheed Wallace to get caught in the NBA's crackdown on player whining. But it's fascinating to see Carmelo Anthony, basketball's poster guy for the offseason (best player on the USA Oops team), get thrown out in Game 1.

Spurs beat Mavs in Dallas, and Tim Duncan didn't even have that great of a game. Of course, when you're talking about these two teams, Game 1 doesn't matter. Come talk to me when they're playing 95 games from now in a Western Conference playoffs Game 7.

Daunte Culpepper could miss the rest of the season. The Dolphins are considering putting him on injured reserve. That qualifies Daunte (along with the Dolphins, more generally) as the Bust of the Year.

David Garrard to start for the Jags: Byron Leftwich seems mystified, but presumably Del Rio doesn't like the state of the health of his former No. 1 QB. Controversy ahead.

NFL to gut "12th Man" home-field advantage: The league is reportedly going to test radios inside all players' helmets, effectively negating the effect of crowd noise on a visiting offense. The NFL claims its to speed up the games by limiting false-start penalties, but isn't that precisely the impact that loud home crowds are going for?

Daisuke Matsuzaka: Let the bidding start at...? Teams have until Wednesday to post their bid to earn the rights to negotiate exclusively with the Japanese pitching sensation. If he really would come in as one of the Top 10 starting pitchers in MLB (which I think he would), how can you NOT break the bank to sign a front-line guy? What's your over-under on the highest posting bid? I'll take the Boss for $30 million.

Tennessee AD doesn't like potty language: I'm sorry, I can't agree with this. The student section should be encouraged to come up with the most clever cheers possible. Yes, even if they contain nasty phrasing. Hell, especially if they contain nasty phrasing. It's part of their charm.

NYC Marathon: All eyes on Lance Armstrong. In addition to being the big attraction of the event (who needs, you know, winners?), he'll be paced by Alberto Salazar, Joan Benoit Samuelson and Hicham el-Guerrouj. I paced my sister at the Chicago Marathon a couple years ago; needless to say, I don't expect it to be similar.

Breeder's Cup: Coming off my Pick of 2006 (Barbaro at the Kentucky Derby), I feel I have to weigh in. I'm liking the hype for LavaMan.

37 comments:

Umm, how does Jeter win the gold glove over Alex Gonzales? That's a damn shame. Gonzales was by far the best defensive short stop in ALL of baseball this season. Jeter is a great player, probably MVP this year, but his lone weakness is his defensive range. When he gets to a ball, he's as solid as they come, but as far as getting to all the balls that come his way...well, besides the homosexual joke I could make, he just doesn't cut it.

I don't know the numbers, but errors don't matter for shortstop in gold glove, heck Ozzie Smith made tons of errors because he simply got to more balls than any other player in the league, so it can be misleading.

I think the gold glove voting is lazy anyway. Only one first time winner among the AL gold glovers? I guess it's not a big deal because I think people know that Jeter is overrated (only defensively) and doesn't deserve this award.

I think the Tennessee AD can do whatever he wants. The reason I got into college football is because of the atmosphere at the games. Of course, I cheer for perennial underachiever Syracuse, so no one is getting that worked up at our games.

That's the whole appeal of a minor league like NCAA football, it's the atmosphere. I love the bands, the low prices (again, I cheer for SU) and the tradition. I can't get that at Bills games. And in the future, why would I spend a huge amount of money to take my son to a game featuring all the behavior I've been trying to keep him away from for _ years?

On some level, you can't control fan behavior, but if it's a bad experience, you're going to lose money. And ADs have to make money.

And, this _is_ Tennessee, Dan. Different culture completely, look at their Senate Democrat candidate. He's more conservative than Guiliani and Bloomberg.

To go along with Gary, the people who vote for the gold glove should be ashamed for voting Jeter over Gonzales. This is supposed to be about who is the best defensive player not a popularity contest and the stats in this case favor Gonzo big time.

FROM TODAY's BOSTON GLOBEJeter won even though he made more than twice as many errors as Gonzalez (15 to 7) and had a lower fielding percentage (.975 to .985).

Didn't Boston U. eliminate cursing in their student section? I thought about this a few days ago (yes, scary thought...me thinking). Who decided that words like "shit," "fuck," "cuntrag" were bad words? They are just words. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Solomon, part of that atmosphere is the rowdy student section. The best moment in the atheletic history of my school (Div III) was when the NCAA rep threatened our student section with a forfeit if they didn't stop doing the BULL-shit chant.

Also, I'll bet that your son uses language on the playground (if he's older than 8) that you would never dream he has even heard. I doubt the chants will teach him anything new.

I hate to gloat, but I was one of the few in here that predicited that L'ville would beat an over-rated WVU. Now on to stage two: Rutgers def L'ville, and stage three: WVU beats Rutgers. Then that's all the Big East talk we'll have to hear.

First, the gold glove voting, like all other voting, is nothing but a popularity contest. NOBODY stood a chance against the MVP.

Second, about the language. Today's youth (that includes me) uses these "bad" words all the time. To us, they are just words. I guarentee that no one at a college football game will be hearing these words for the first time. Colleges should just let their students say what they want. At Purdue, the recently told the band they couldnt initiate a particular cheer because the students yelled "IU Sucks" in the middle of it. Is there really anyone who thinks that is that terrible?

Can we stop with the WVU going to a BSC...they had a chance, they blew it, they don't play anyone anymore (and once Rutgers loses to Lville they literally have zero quality wins). WVU is done, they can go to some .com bowl and should be happy with it. As I said yesterday, they simply have not beat a single top 30 team in the past two years (minus Georgia who may not have been as good as everyone thought).

And how bout that three fumbles in four plays routine these two elite teams put together last night...very impressive.

I'm not a huge Rutgers fan, but I am now hoping that they win out including their bowl game. I'm also hoping that Ohio State/Michigan loses to whomever they are playing in the BCS championship game, so the BCS will crown a 1 loss champion while we have Rutgers on the sidelines finishing with 0 losses.

Gotta love the BCS.

As for the Jeter vs Gonzalez debate. Gold Gloves haven't meant anything in years. Jeter might not be the greatest winner, but he's not the worst. That would be Rafael Palmeiro a few years ago when he DH'ed for about 95% of the year and still won the GG for 1st base.

I agree with Steve on the new bitching rule. Great idea by Stern. Baseball should adopt it for the guys who always cry about called strikes....Frank Thomas would lead the world in ejections.

Viesturs has said that when training for a summit attempt he runs 10 miles a day a 7:30/mile pace. That pace would put him over the finish line around 3:15, but with race day bonus, he can probably shave a few minutes off that.

Some chants of bull-shit are not that bad, especially if they are in the student section. Its bad when random people are dropping f-bombs and other such garbage in the non-student sections. I don't really care, but I do when my 10 year old bro is there and the old lady in front of us looks like she is going to have a stroke because of it. I'm sure you'll love bringing your little guy to games while drunk guys scream obsenities and fight, right?

I feel bad for the Tennessee students. At St. Joe's, the band can't play the "Hey" song anymore because of the "You suck!" that always followed shouting "Hey". I understand where the AD is coming from, but a lot of schools have been freaking out about things like this unnecessarily.

Have you ever watched Kenny Rogers play/make plays (diving/running/rolling off the mound)?

Does your snarky little question even make any sense?

How about a little Instant Credit for the season's best fielding battery? You can make snarky comments about those other four World Series pitchers...

Also, was Louisville that impressive? I was pulling for them, since I've been predicting for nigh on two months that they would destroy WVU, and they kept frustrating me with dumb penalties (how many 'dead ball - personal foul's were called in that game? 12?) and sacks allowed at just the crucial moments to kill drives.

And that juggernaut offense was having a lot of trouble punching it in (in general, but now I remember especially the drive where they almost settled for another field goal because they couldn't move 2 inches) - imagine the trouble they'd have against a serious defense. I only saw the first half and 5 minutes of the second, but I saw a ton of dropped passes and receivers falling of their own accord (wtf?), and Louisville did get one honest-to-goodness offensive TD against what can only be called a very suspect secondary/line/defense, but the game was not tilting either direction until the defense capitalized on UL's insanely clever "surrender a fumble to advance the ball since WVU will inevitably fumble" strategy. Rumor (aka ESPNEWS) has it that 7 of those points also came from a... 40-yard punt return, which must be among the shortest TD returns in the history of everything.I can't speak to the offensive contributions after the 12-minute mark of the 3rd, but I know I was watching a team with a finishing problem get a lot of help from their friends.

Don't be blind! Somebody has to win EVERY game! Just because Louisville finally demonstrated that WVU really isn't that great, doesn't mean that Louisville is! ...does anybody think those two stupid California newspaper guys will vote UL #1 now? I hope they feel like huge douchebags (they are).

This topic frustrates me beyond compare, go Scarlet Knights.

(oh, and Dan - I do want to see Rutgers win out, and I even almost believe in it, but I don't want to see the complete competition vacuum that is the Big East make a mockery of the national championship game. Maybe if they had an SEC-Big East play-in game and Rutgers proved their mettle against a good team.)

Also, your dismissal of Michigan all season is starting to prove humorous to me. That is all.

the stick-um was pine tar and it was on his pitching hand not glove hand

i watched that game and the 'ville and wvu both STINK (look at the comments section Dan)

jeter winning gold gloves is like if david ortiz winning gold gloves, yeah they both mae very few errors but they have just about the same range

did anyone see the HS basketball sched ESPN is putting up? i think its 10 games, oak hill, dematha, (the traditional powerhouses) as well as huntington (read: OJ MAYO ) all play twice

fining chad johnson was retarded, he didn't even wear it during a game, can they fine him if he walks down the street wearing it???, as far as i know you can wear whatever you want during warmups, does anyone know any diff?

what's hockey?

i'm not sure how the Techs are helping the NBA... last year: 831 techs in 1230 games, so far this season 37 techs in 17 games....you don't have to be a math wiz to figure this out

let's not forget who started the "out-of-line cursing in the stands"..... Maryland Terps B-ball against Duke 3 years ago (some may recall the ( F - U - J - J ) chant that got espn fined by the fcc because you could easily hear it on tv...leading to espn said they weren't going to do terps/duke games anymore till they stopped...leading to the university getting a law passed that said they could toss you for chanting that stuff

One of my all-time favorite sports quotes comes from Baseball Prospectus in regards to Jeter:

"[T]he reason Jeter has hurt his team defensively is that he doesn't get to many balls and is not spectacularly efficient with those he does get to. Fans new to the game sometimes think his nickname is "Pastadiving" because they hear the phrase "past a diving Jeter" so often during Yankee broadcasts."

Does any Yankees fan actually believe that Jeter deserved the Gold Glove over Alex Gonzalez or Orlando Cabrera?

Did not watch the whole game last night, but did catch the punt return TD - the punt was from the end zone, short, all the WVU coverage guys came down on the returner - only to watch the punt get caught by an up back, who got outside the one guy near him and he was gone. Brutal special teams mistake.

Sorry, but as a Penn State fan, I've gotta say this - WVU may be overrated, but Rutgers is WAY overrated. I gotta think if they played Penn State this year, PSU wins by 2 TD's easy. Guess we'll find out if they are for real next Thursday. Guess we'll also see if PSU can save their season Saturday.

Y'know, what makes college games great is the atmosphere, with or without those "nasty" words. So why is the NFL trying to get rid of that? People are hard pressed enough as it is to justify shelling out the absurd costs of tickets, parking, and stadium food to go to a game. Taking the 12th man out of it is going to be just one more reason to stay in the comforts of your home and watch the thing on TV.

Actually now that I look at it, Michael Young was also way more deserving of the Gold Glove than Jeter. Had a better fielding pct., more assists, and putouts than Jeter, his range factor was nearly a point higher, and he wasn't playing behind the primiere ground ball pitcher in the AL.

Thanks for showing some love to O.C. Too bad this was not one of his better seasons. It's frustrating that the usual AL shortstop conversations discuss Jeter and Tejada before ending the conversation. What about O.C., Michael Young or Guillen?

The ML-best defense in Boston didn't get a single gold glove, with all four infielders having ridiculous defensive seasons. I'd like to point this out for anyone who thinks that the gold gloves are legitimate.

To anyone complaining about the prudish nature of the country towards four letter words, I implore you to watch the Profanity episode of the show Bullshit! with Penn and Teller. The show is just awesome by its own right, but they really hit the nail on the head on this topic. Cliffs notes: people who campaign against bad language are just control freaks who perpetuate the significance of those very words.

re: BCS rankings. I honestly believe that an undefeated team who only beat Division II teams would be fanatically defended by a significant number of people as NC-worthy. Just look at the arguments people are putting up here, and take them to their logical extreme.

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.